On 22 April 2025, a group of militants turned the idyllic Bisaran Valley near Pahalgam into a graveyard. The attackers, armed and disguised in uniforms resembling local police, opened fire on unsuspecting tourists enjoying a break in the Kashmir hills. But as eyewitness testimonies now reveal, this was not just a random act of terrorism—it was a targeted massacre, and many of the victims were singled out for being Hindu.
A Vacation Turned Nightmare
Asavari Jagdale, a 26-year-old HR professional from Pune, was on vacation with her family when the terrorists struck. Her father, Santosh Jagdale, was asked to come out of the tent and recite an Islamic verse. When he couldn’t, he was shot three times—once in the head, once behind the ear, and again in the back. Her uncle, lying next to her, was also gunned down. The family had no time to react, no protection from the state, and no warning.
The attackers made their intentions clear: they demanded religious identification and targeted those who failed their forced litmus tests. “Even the locals were reciting Islamic verses,” Asavari recounted to PTI, highlighting the horrifying communal screening process the gunmen imposed on their victims.
This is what the eye witness is saying but lefturds still denying the hindu-hate angle pic.twitter.com/SzskVRohJD
— Hindutva Knight (@HPhobiaWatch) April 22, 2025
Survivors and witnesses have since corroborated that the terrorists asked victims to strip to check for circumcision and forced them to recite the kalma—Islamic testimony of faith. Those who failed were shot dead. These chilling methods reveal beyond doubt that this was a religiously motivated massacre, not a random terror incident.
A Massacre Of Hindus
The brutal terror attack left 27-28 civilians dead and several injured. Among the deceased were a majority of Indian tourists, mostly Hindus, from across the country, locals from Jammu and Kashmir and foreign nationals said to be from Nepal and the UAE
The victims included an Intelligence Bureau officer posted in Telangana and a young Navy officer. In one blood-curdling incident, a survivor reported that the attackers spared a woman only so she could “go and tell Modi what happened here.”
The Resistance Front (TRF), a Lashkar-e-Taiba offshoot, claimed responsibility. In a statement, the group blamed the Indian government’s alleged attempts to “change Kashmir’s demography” by settling outsiders, citing this as their justification for the carnage.
The Whitewashing Begins
Yet despite overwhelming evidence and eyewitness accounts confirming religious targeting, some politicians have chosen to obfuscate the truth.
Lakshmi Ramachandran, General Secretary and spokesperson of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC), ignited a firestorm of criticism after downplaying the communal nature of the attack. In a post on X, she framed the massacre solely as an act of terrorism and accused the media of “making this a Hindu-Muslim issue to please their bosses.”
She wrote, “Attack by Pakistani terrorists on innocent tourists in Pehalgam is extremely disturbing. The way Godi media is reporting the ghastly attack, treading a careful line lest they displease Modi-Shah, is highly irritating. They are making this a Hindu-Muslim issue to please their bosses. They are claiming that the terrorists made sure that the victims were Hindus before shooting them down. Some of the victims are Tamils and Telugus we hear. How the hell will Pakistani terrorists distinguish between a Tamil Muslim and Tamil Hindu? Shame on you Godi media. You have no humanity left in you. INDIANS were killed and the perpetrators should not be spared.”
The question she asks was already answered by the testimony of survivors like Asavari and others who described how attackers demanded the kalma and used circumcision as a test of religious identity.
Attack by Pakistani terrorists on innocent tourists in Pehalgam is extremely disturbing.
The way Godi media is reporting the ghastly attack, treading a careful line lest they displease Modi-Shah, is highly irritating.
They are making this a Hindu-Muslim issue to please their…
— Lakshmi Ramachandran (@laksr_tn) April 22, 2025
Rather than acknowledging the horror of being hunted for one’s faith, Ramachandran deflected focus onto media coverage and tried to erase the very identity-based targeting that defines this atrocity.
While security forces have launched search operations, and senior leaders have condemned the attack, very few have directly addressed the religious targeting that unfolded. The failure of mainstream political voices to call out this aspect of the massacre raises serious questions: Why the hesitation to state the obvious? Why are victim testimonies being sidelined?
The answer seems to lie in political convenience. It exposes the ideological underpinnings of Islamist terror groups and their intent to drive out non-Muslim populations—a chilling echo of the 1990 Kashmiri Pandit exodus.
What happened in Pahalgam was not just terrorism—it was a targeted communal massacre. The victims were not just random tourists; they were Hindus singled out through deliberate religious screening. Survivors are telling the truth, even if politicians like Lakshmi Ramachandran aren’t ready to hear it.
(With inputs from The Hindu)
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